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Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Roma set the April 15 cutoff for Jose Augusto Masmela-Sarmiento (above) after defense attorney Emile Lisboa said he was still awaiting evidence from prosecutors.
“I’ll order discovery, and if you encounter any difficulty let me know about it,” Roma told Lisboa.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
Among the information Lisboa has requested are medical records of facial reconstruction that he said would exonerate his client of a Cliffside Park rape in May 2001.
Altogether, the 47-year-old Colombian native is charged with 11 counts of rape and sexual abuse in two separate incidents.
He was first arrested on charges of molesting a child in Fairview between May 2002 and April 2005.
New counts were added after his mugshot appeared on CLIFFVIEW PILOT a year ago and a woman came forward, alleging rape.
It was around 9 at night when an attacker threw the then-15-year-old girl to the ground and molested her on May 3, 2001.
She immediately reported it to Cliffside Park police, but no arrests were made. The detective who originally caught the case has since died.
The original report said the girl told police she screamed but no help came. It also included photos of scratch marks she said she sustained in the struggle.
“It’s him,” the now-27-year-old woman told a confidant after seeing the mugshot on the PILOT.
Interviewed by detectives, she revealed details no one else would know of the May 3, 2001 assault on Palisade Plaza, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Marmela-Sarmiento has remained free on $300,000 bail since last April.
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